Mike Adenuga's jewel

With the wedding bells tolling
for her, billionaire Dr. Mike
Adenuga Jnr ’s pretty daughter,
Bella, has told the inspiring story
of how she single-handedly
fought the battle of the bulge to
become the trim damsel who is
getting set to go to the altar
soon.
It is a story that should
motivate every fat, weighty
woman or orobo girl dreaming
of trimming down into fitness,
good health and walking down
the red carpet of fashion.
In his father’s long-awaited
biography (written by the duo
of Mike Awoyinfa and Dimgba
Igwe), which should be out
sometime this year, Bella says
she was inspired by her father ’s
work ethic, discipline and strong
will power to fight and defeat
obesity, a gene common in the
Adenuga family.
“My dad has always been driven
and hardworking,” she says. “He
is one man who believes that
nothing is impossible. He says: If
you put your mind hard enough
to something and you work
hard enough, you are going to
achieve it. And that is the truth.
I even applied that to my life.
“ I used to be obese. I used to be
about 120 kg and that is about
240 pounds. One day, I just
woke and told myself: ‘No, I
have to shed weight.’ I was still
at the university. And my
friends said: ‘Oh, you can’t do it.’
And I remembered my father’s
saying: ‘If you work hard
enough towards something, you
are going to achieve it. ’
“I told myself: ‘I am not going to
accept the fact of being fat and
continuing to be fat till I die. I
said, with discipline, I can lose
weight and I must lose weight. I
put my mind to it and I achieved
it. ”
How did she achieve it? “I first
cut out all sugar and all soft
drinks. Before, I was addicted to
Ginger Ale. Ginger Ale was my
staple drink. I could drink seven
bottles in a day. And by cutting
off that, I initially lost weight,
because I used to take so much
sugar. And after, I started
cleaning up on my portions. ”
In Boston, where she attended
university, there are lots of
rivers and sidewalks across the
rivers. She took advantage of
that to embark on long trekking,
with a view to shedding her
excess luggage.
“I don’t like strenuous exercise,
so I never used to run, but I
could walk about five miles a
day which was about two
hours. And sometimes, I did it
twice a day before my class in
the morning or after my class in
the evening.”
With persistence, she stuck to
that exercise regime and
miraculously she transfigured.
Such was the extent of dramatic
transformation that Mike
Adenuga thought he was
dreaming when he set eyes on
her beloved daughter during a
visit to her school in Boston,
Massachusetts.
“ When my dad finally saw me,
he couldn’t believe it. Dad used
to call me Ben-be. The Ben-be
nickname came because I was
chubby. It comes from the
Yoruba saying, Ben-be ti be,
meaning ‘Ben-be has burst.’
Because I was so chubby, dad
would say, Ben-be ti be. The
Adenugas are big. It is in the
genes. It hit me as well and I had
to curb it.
“My dad, as well, is big, but he is
strict. He exercises every day. He
is an exercise freak. He is always
in the gym. By 1 a.m., he goes to
the gym. He loves playing
squash, but he had an accident
while playing squash and this
has kept him from squash. He
doesn ’t play squash anymore,
but he exercises like mad.
“ There is the tendency to be big
in my family. You have to make
a conscious effort to avoid it.
You have to watch what you
eat and exercise. From my dad, I
have learnt that with hard work
and determination, anything is
possible.
“On seeing my new figure, he
said to me: ‘I have to give you
credit. You have been so
disciplined. It is not easy. For the
fact that you put your mind to
it, you accomplished it. You
deserve a lot of credit. ’ I have
applied this to almost every
other aspect of my life. ”
Bella Adenuga is one young lady
saddled with the heavy
responsibility of doing what
girls of her age would not be
found doing: managing a
company from the top as
Executive Director in Globacom,
her father ’s giant telecoms
company, with the big ambition
to take over Africa —and to
“rule your world.”
Sitting behind her desk and
almost swamped in her big
office where she is fully
involved in management and
decision-making, Bella started
from the shop floor as a student
intern, working in the lower
level finance and communication
departments. She wasn ’t a
director then. With that
experience, she was able to
know what goes on down
below the organisation.
After graduation, dad did not
give her baby steps. He simply
threw her instead straight into
the heat of the action —wanting
one report or another, asking
her to face the press alone
without any support, and
making her to attend marathon
meetings after meeting. The
dreariest of the meetings was
the Sunday meetings involving
“ roll out soldiers” at the
commencement of Globacom.
The roll out meetings usually
started from 9 a.m. on Sunday
and could roll into 11 p.m. or
sometimes 1 a.m. And Adenuga
would not excuse her daughter
for any reason. It was part of
the discipline the father wanted
to instil in her daughter and
prepare her for the future.
“We had that meeting for about
a year,” says Bella, as she recalls
the early years of Globacom and
her father ’s commitment to see
it work. “This was where my
dad really had to put his eye in
rolling out the network in the
various parts of the country —
Kano, Warri and so on. At the
meeting, he would ask questions
like: How many towers are in
this area? We knew that every
Sunday, we were going to be
there for such long hours, but
we learnt a lot from dad’s
leadership and management
style. My dad didn ’t say: ‘Oh, she
is a girl, let’s start her slowly.’ I
jumped right into the mix. When
you are rolling out a network, it
is so intense. You have to cover
different areas and there are
always issues to trash out. It
was a meeting of all the people
who had gone to the regions to
come and give their updates and
to say things like: ‘There are
eight towers now in this part of
Kano; there are 15 towers; we
need poles; we need masts. ’ My
dad could say: ‘Let’s add a tower
here; we don’t need a tower
there.’”
Bella recalls that when she
started working at Globacom,
she had three things working
against her. “Number one is the
fact that I am a girl. Two, I am
young. Three, I have a rich
father and I work for him. Some
people would look at me and
perceive me as a figurehead
who doesn ’t do anything —just
a case of a spoilt daughter of a
rich man who comes to work
any time she likes and things like
that. For me, being young means
that I have to prove myself to
people. Even when I go to
parties, I have to comport
myself. ”
It is the frankest and fullest
interview Bella has ever given
on her life as Mike Adenuga ’s
daughter. And you would have
to wait for the Mike Adenuga
book to read it in full.
Throughout the interview, she
proved herself as a smart,
intelligent young woman who is
a chip off the old block. It takes
a genius to enter university at
age 14, but Bella is the last to
accept that tag of a genius,
believing that it ’s hard work and
a father’s push that had taken
her to where she is today.
Of course, the issues of her love
life and marriage were raised in
the interview. And she did not
shy away from addressing
them, saying: “It’s a natural
course in life that if you are a
girl, you must have an affair and
get married someday. Getting
married is inevitable. So, there is
nothing much my dad says
about that, because it is
inevitable. One day, he is going
to give me out to marry. ”
On what she thinks the future
holds for her, she says: “Like
every girl, the dream is to get
married and have your own
family, have kids and build a
good home while being able to
maintain a good career and
continue to build on the dream
that my dad has already
developed. ”
Here is wishing Bella a happy
married life. In this business of
writing, once you have
interviewed anybody, he or she
becomes your friend for life.
This is the beauty of journalism.
And this is the little bonus that
comes with being a biographer
— the bonus of getting an
exclusive story on your subject
or the daughter of your subject.